THE COMBINATION of Josie Lloyd, Wendy Anderson and skip Janet Willis have qualified for a second event at the national indoor championships in March and April.

The Westlecot trio had already booked a place in the Over-50s two-wood triples last 16 at Nottingham after recording an 18-15 victory over Bromsgrove in the inter-area final a fortnight ago.

Now, the Area 10 champions have reached the last 16 of the ladies national triples at Melton & District (Leics).

They booked their spot with a convincing 19-12 victory over Welford-on-Avon’s Area 9 champions Lisa Smith, Yvonne Pick and Amy Stanton, in the inter-area final last Saturday at Cotswold (Stroud).

Willis’ trio were never headed, winning the first end with a two, and led 8-1 after only five ends and at halfway, had increased their advantage to 14-4. They led 16-9 at 15 and went onto seal a 19-12 victory at 18 ends to book their place at Melton.

However, Cotswold was not a happy hunting ground last Saturday for the Smith sisters, Lucy and Katy, in the inter-area final of the ladies pairs.

They led 11-10 at halfway but then dropped a big count of five and never recovered, going down 26-15 to the Bromsgrove duo of Gill Cliff and Angela Farrar, who move forward to the last 16 in the pairs at Melton & District.

Triples seems to be a successful discipline in the nationals for Westlecot players, with Terry Walton, Dave Snell and Mel Biggs having already qualified for the last 16 and final stages in the men’s Over 50s triples.

Now Snell and Biggs, plus Dave Godwin, are through to the inter-area final of the men’s national triples championship after a brilliant fightback, coming from 18-12 down to win the Area 10 final 19-18 against Malvern Hills.

They now face Whiteknights (Reading) – Area 15 champions Michael Knight, Simon Jones and Robert Newman – in the inter-area final of the men’s national triples championship at Oxford City and County IBC on Sunday, March 6 – just one step away from Melton.

However, Neil Smith’s hopes of reaching the final stages of the national singles again are over for this season. He lost 21-10 to Ryan Atkins (Malvern Hills) in the Area 10 singles final at MidGlos on Wednesday.

  • NEIL SMITH and his daughters Lucy and Katy will be looking to bounce back and put their disappointments behind them in the men’s singles and ladies pairs respectively.

They are joined by Ian Jefferies as they bid for glory in the last 16 of the mixed fours national championship at Lincoln & District this weekend.

They were due to face Area 29/30 winners Chenda Harris, Lynn Williams, Tony Foxwell and Brian Southward (Taunton Deane) last night. If successful, they would then meet Ipswich or Huntingdon in the quarter-finals.